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'NO WAR! No war!" the crowd chanted as the Socialist Party leader, Zapatero, made his acceptance speech in Madrid on Sunday. They did so as a shock election result in Spain removed from office the Tory Popular Party of Aznar. Aznar was the one of the key European leaders who most backed the war against Iraq, and a year ago posed with Bush and Blair in the Azores as they launched that war.

WARMONGERS IN the West rushed to express horror at the death toll in last week's bomb attacks in Madrid. Yet they continue to carry out massacres of their own in Iraq on a regular basis. A year of occupation has led to the deaths of over 10,000 Iraqi civilians.

THE TERRORIST attacks in Madrid, placed in three local trains, took place around 7.30am last Thursday. Most of the victims were commuting to work and school. The aim of the terrorists, according to the police, was to blow up the trains inside Atocha's station and bring down the whole building.

SPAIN'S TORY government tried to blame ETA for the Madrid explosions as part of its attempt to hang on to power using Spanish nationalism in a completely reactionary manner. Under the Spanish republic established in 1931 Catalonia and the Basque country had their own governments. Franco's fascists destroyed this independence when they overthrew the republic in the civil war of 1936-9.

ACROSS THE world this Saturday people are marching against Bush and Blair's invasion of Iraq and "war on terror". An appeal to march on this day came out of the 50,000-strong European Social Forum in Paris last November, and the 100,000-strong World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, in January.

THE HEROIC struggle by supermarket workers in the US, who were on strike or locked out for four and a half months, ended last week. Unfortunately the leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers union ensured the workers suffered a defeat.

THE GREEK centre-left party that pursued Blairite policies for four years was swept out of office at last Sunday's general election. New Democracy, the Tory party, took 47 percent of the vote to 41 percent for Pasok, equivalent to the Labour Party in Britain.

AN AMERICAN airforce plane flew Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile last weekend as US troops landed in the Caribbean state for the fourth time in 125 years. The White House said Aristide had resigned. Aristide now says he was forcibly removed.

THREE MILLION Indian workers struck for the day on Tuesday of last week against plans to cut pensions and other benefits to government workers and introduce flexible working. "This is the 11th strike in the last ten years against neo-liberalism," says Rakesh, leader of the Lucknow banking workers' union federation.

AROUND HALF a million trade unionists in Zambia went on strike recently against wage cuts and tax rises forced through by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. JOYCE NONDE is the general secretary of a union allied to the Federation of Free Trade Unions of Zambia. She was in London last weekend addressing the War on Want conference and spoke to Socialist Worker.

'THESE ELECTIONS are assuming a national character. They are the first since the right wing UMP government won a landslide victory one and a half years ago. This came after the shock of the National Front's Le Pen getting into the run-off in the presidential election, and the huge protests that followed.

THE PEOPLE of Haiti are caught in a horrible vice. On one side is a corrupt government that has rigged elections and presided over deepening poverty for the mass of people. On the other is an uprising led by brutal murderers who ran a dictatorship that terrorised the country in the early 1990s.

AROUND HALF a million workers in Zambia struck last week against the International Monetary Fund's cuts and the government which implements them. Thousands of Zambians marched on parliament during a strike that closed offices, shops and schools in the capital, Lusaka.

THE RIGHT wing Dutch government plans to deport 26,000 refugees during the next three years. The move is opposed by a majority of people in the Netherlands. A poll showed over 80 percent of people support allowing more refugees to stay. Protests against the government's plan began in the north of the Netherlands, organised by the group Van Harte Pardon (Wholeheartedly Pardon).

ON SUNDAY of last week two Korean socialists, Kim Woo-yong and Chang Ho-chul, were arrested by the South Korean police. The arrest shows the true nature of Roh Moo-hyun's government, which claims to be democratic. Chang has now been released, but Kim is still in custody. Trade unions and left organisations like the All Together group have organised protests against the arrest and are demanding Kim's release.

ON SATURDAY morning Thomas Hickey, a young Aboriginal boy, was riding his bicycle through Redfern. Somehow he fell off, was impaled on a fence and died. The exact circumstances aren't known. But rumour spread through the Aboriginal community that he had been pursued by police.

AROUND 50 representatives of the Kashmiri solidarity organisation Tehreek-e-Kashmir UK met in Alum Rock, Birmingham, last week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the UN resolution calling for a plebiscite so that the people of Kashmir can determine their own future.